Is The GOP Becoming Gentler And Kinder Ahead Of The 2014 Elections?

BY IGOR VOLSKY/Think Progress

The New York Time suggested Monday that some of the Republicans running for Congress in 2014 have moderated their rhetoric, embracing a gentler, kinder tone “in favor of a narrower focus on the Affordable Care Act.”

Some of these candidates — particularly those who ran in 2012 and lost — have “shelved their incendiary remarks about President Obama and the national debt” and hope to use the health care law to “attract moderate voters from both parties, even in heavily Democratic districts, who are disenchanted with its rollout.” The administration’s troubles in implementing the Affordable Care Act may have actually had the effect of mellowing out Republicans, the piece argues, providing them with a singular issue on which to focus their ire:

The campaigns, if successful, could be an indication of change in some corners of the Republican Party as many former firebrands mellow their messages and people like Mr. [Bob] Dold, who benefited from the Tea Party but was one of the more moderate members of the House, try to capitalize on the center. At the very least, their campaigns show that some people who ran vociferously against Washington appear eager to get back there.

But the shift — however slight — is rhetorical; it doesn’t signal any real change in policy or an effort by Republicans to stop obstructing the implementation of health care reform. Quite the opposite: even as millions of Americans are signing up for coverage — and are preparing to go to doctors and hospitals with their new insurance plans on Jan. 1 — the GOP sees undoing the ACA as the key to electoral success in 2014. That, after all was the impetus behind the short-term budget resolution. As GOP strategist Ford O’Connell put it to the Washington Times, “This was the establishment wing of the party telling the base that elections have consequences. Because Obamacare is the golden goose for 2014, they don’t want to have anything interfere with making as many gains as possible in Congress — particularly in the Senate.” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) agreed, telling Meet The Press on Sunday, “On our side of the aisle, we like the fact for the economy, no shutdowns. We also don’t want to have shutdown drama so we can focus on replacing Obamacare, so we can focus on showing better ideas and what this is coming in.”

Republicans have tried to showcase these “better ideas” in 2010 and 2012 but have failed to rally around anything but repeal — a position that the candidates in the Times story — Bob Dold, Nan Hayworth, Martha McSally — all proudly support.

So yes, some Republicans may try to distance themselves from some of the inflammatory rhetoric that dominated the 2010 Tea Party surge and the ill-orchestrated government shutdown three years later. But the party is still working to deny or take away health care coverage from millions of Americans. And there is nothing “moderate” about that.

Nevada Republican accidentally speaks his mind

By Steve Benen/Maddow Blog

Ordinarily, if one asks a prominent elected official about their party's prospects in the coming elections, you can expect generic optimism. "Our party has great ideas, a great record, and great candidates," he or she will say, "and I think voters will respond well to our great message."

But once in a great while, politicians will slip and accidentally speak their minds. Jon Ralston, for example,caught Nevada Assembly Minority Leader Pat Hickey's (R) appearance on a conservative radio talk show, and noticed Hickey getting "careless."

"Probably where we had a million voters turn out in 2012; we'll have like 700,000 [in 2014]. A lot of minorities, a lot of younger people will not turn out in a non-presidential year. It's a great year for Republicans!"

Dear Nevada Assembly Minority Leader Pat Hickey, your party doesn't want you to say this out loud.

If Hickey wants to make the case that 2014 will be "a great year for Republicans" because the party is offering the electorate a better vision for the future, more power to him. But that's not what he said. Rather, the Nevada GOP leader think it'll be "a great year for Republicans" because he assumes black, Latino, and younger voters won't vote on Election Day.

In other words, the key to Republican optimism is confidence that more Americans won't show up to vote. Why have GOP officials waged such an aggressive "war on voting"? Why did Republican celebrate the demise of the Voting Rights Act? This is why.

Ralston summarized the Democratic response this way: "Yes, you heard that right -- the Republican Party is so out-of-touch with Nevada families they are finally admitting the only way they can win an election is for as few people to vote as possible."

How Republican Obstructionism Could Hand Congress To Democrats

BY RUY TEIXEIRA/Think Progress

Why are Republicans so freaked out?

At this point, they have a good chance — perhaps around 50-50 — of picking up enough seats to take the Senate, while Democrats’ chances of picking up the 17 seats they need to regain control of the House look considerably smaller than that. And yet, as one Politico story put it, “it is almost impossible to find an establishment Republican in town who’s not downright morose about the 2013 that has been and is about to be.”

Politico suggests the reason for the glumness is fear about the political fallout from the GOP’s unyielding, nihilistic approach to governance on issues like Obamacare and the debt ceiling. That problem may be far worse than they imagine. A close scrutiny of the data reveals several demographic weak points that the current wave of Republican crazy could activate, leading to the outcome they dread the most: Democratic control of both houses of Congress.

Start with minorities. It’s not well-known, but Republicans in 2010 benefited not only from relatively low minority turnout (standard for an off-year election) but also from relatively low minority support for Democratic candidates. Emphasis here is on the relative: minority support for House Democrats in 2010 was 73-25 — high, but below the 77-22 margin that minorities averaged in the three off-year elections that preceded 2010. If minorities snap back to 77-22 Democratic support as a consequence of Republican misbehavior, and the expected 2 percentage point increase in the share of minority voters from population trends emerges, then the Republican 6.8 percentage point margin in 2010 will be immediately sliced in half. And if the minority vote goes even stronger for the Democrats, reaching 2012 levels, that would eliminate about three-quarters of the Republicans’ 2010 advantage all on its own.

Another demographic problem for the GOP comes from a more surprising quarter: seniors. As Erica Seifert of Democracy Corps noted in a recent memo:

There’s something going on with seniors: It is now strikingly clear that they have turned sharply against the GOP. This is apparent in seniors’ party affiliation and vote intention, in their views on the Republican Party and its leaders, and in their surprising positions on jobs, health care, retirement security, investment economics, and the other big issues that will likely define the 2014 midterm elections.

We first noticed a shift among seniors early in the summer of 2011, as Paul Ryan’s plan to privatize Medicare became widely known (and despised) among those at or nearing retirement. Since then, the Republican Party has come to be defined by much more than its desire to dismantle Medicare. To voters from the center right to the far left, the GOP is now defined by resistance, intolerance, intransigence, and economics that would make even the Robber Barons blush. We have seen other voters pull back from the GOP, but among no group has this shift been as sharp as it is among senior citizens.

It is therefore quite plausible that the GOP will benefit far less from senior support in 2014 than in 2010. If the senior share of voters returns to normal levels (19 percent) and the Republican margin among this group drops to its post-2000 average (6 points, about where it is right now in the Democracy Corps polls) that would take care of the rest of the GOP margin from 2010, getting the Democrats slightly past the break-even point in the popular vote.

Of course, given the well-known GOP advantage in translating seats to votes, Democrats probably need to do substantially better than breaking even to attain a majority in the House. That won’t be easy, but there are certainly potential avenues to shift the 2014 House vote even farther in Democrats’ direction. There is the youth vote, for example, which was relatively poor for the Democrats in 2010 (55-42) and could certainly improve, as well as possibly turn out in larger numbers. The latter could also be true of the minority vote, whose projected 2 point increase in voter share, is due solely to population increase. If relative minority turnout is better in 2014 than 2010, then there will be an even larger increase in minority vote share over 2010, pushing the Democrats’ margin farther toward what they need to take the House.

Make no mistake about it: the Democrats face an uphill climb. But the possibilities outlined above inch closer to reality every day the GOP continues its coordinated campaign to alienate anyone interested in functional governance.

The Tea Party Turns on Republicans, Threatens to Sit Out 2014

By: Sarah Jones/politicususa

When you organize a protest and only 6 people show, including yourself, your movement might be in serious trouble.

Waving a rather sad, given the context, but large “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, Juan Fiol, a Miami real estate broker and Marco Rubio protest organizer, wondered where everyone was. “It was supposed to be a big event,” he told Naples News, as he stood with the five other Tea Partiers to protest Senator Marco Rubio (R-FLA) for being a “back-stabber” and a “liar” over immigration reform. That desolate July protest must have stung.

Bitter feelings of betrayal have led activists to their next threat: They will sit out the 2014 election:

The tea party is a loosely knit web of activists, and some are hoping to rekindle the fire with 2014 primary challenges to wayward Republicans. But many more say they plan to sit out high-profile races in some important swing states next year, a move that GOP leaders fear could imperil the re-election prospects of former tea party luminaries, including the governors of Florida and Ohio.

Republicans need only look at how that same tactic turned out for Democrats in 2010 to know that is a disaster waiting to happen.

Republicans are now paying the piper for their 2010 gamble. Yes, it won them the House and gummed up Obama’s agenda, but it also made them wildly unpopular. Worse still, their own party has been taken over by the beast.

Even Republicans don’t like the Republican Party. A July ABC poll by Langer Research Associates showed that a stunning 52% of Republicans see their party as being on the wrong track with only 37% seeing it on the right track. In fact, for the first time since 1994, a majority of Republicans are dissatisfied with their party.

A July Quinnipiac poll demonstrated the Republican Party’s problem: Forty-nine percent of Republicans believe that the GOP is doing too little to compromise with President Obama, yet the Tea Party wants no compromise. The Tea Party consists of the most vocal supporters, the reliable turnout for off year election turnout. With an ever-shrinking tent, Republicans can’t afford to lose any support. After all, the ABC poll also revealed that only 21% of Americans surveyed identify as Republican.

Republicans keep trying to fool the Tea Party just like they fool voters; for example, they’re trying to sell Rubio’s immigration reform as border security. But the Republican Party bred and fed a particularly virulent strain of paranoia in order to turn the Tea Party against their own best economic interests and keep them misinformed. It was inevitable that at some point, that paranoia would turn on the Republican Party – and it looks like that’s beginning to happen.

Some of the embittered Tea might sit out 2014, but don’t breathe a sigh of relief yet. Finding no national platform, the Tea Party is following the Republican game plan of 40-50 years ago. Tea Partiers are infiltrating on the local level, running for “school boards, county commissions and city councils, focusing on issues such as unfunded pension liabilities and sewer system repairs,” according to Naples News. So the people who know the least about government and governing and hate government the most want to be in charge of it. Since no one will hand them the national reins, they’re taking over on a local level. What could go wrong?

Meanwhile, House Republicans remain clueless and Foxified against the national reality. They only care that they can get re-elected; they don’t care what they are doing to their party.

Thus the party vaunting the morality of self-interest now has to live with the downside of self-interest as a guiding principle. It turns out that it’s not all the conservative idea of a good time — denying poor people food and cheering the deaths of the unemployed.

Eventually, the self-interest they gloat about bites them in the bum and even the Republican Party can’t force their own self-interested members to behave anymore. Now the activists are threatening to stay home because the GOP didn’t hate on immigrants enough. Let’s not forget, it was the Republican Party who taught the Tea Party how to control via terror, fits, and tantrums.

Turns out, it was the Republican Party and not President Obama who took it upon themselves to tread on the Tea Party. That was predictable, as is their rage at being used.

Tick tock, Governors Scott and Kasich.

With victories like these, the GOP will become the Whigs (Who? Exactly.)

by Liberal Librarian/The People's View

What does the Supreme Court's decision gutting the 1965 Voting Rights Act mean for the Republican Party? Follow me, if you will. 

Earlier, Spandan wrote an analysis of the decision and how the Democrats should respond to it. Basically, it's an opportunity to do in 2014 what we did in 2012 in the face of voter suppression.

But it's a bit more than that. Much more. To emphasize Spandan's point about demography being destiny: both he and I live in California. Up until Prop 187, the state was more or less reliably Republican, at least in presidential elections. Things were more complex lower down, but the GOP had a lock on our electoral votes. Prop 187 was the galvanizing force which turned a reddish state into pure cerulean blue. How much so? For the first time, Democrats control a two-thirds majority in both houses of the Legislature. And all statewide elected officials are Democrats. The two-thirds majority is big, because that's what you need to pass a budget. No more deals need to be made with the GOP. The governor, Jerry Brown, is from the fiscally conservative wing of the party; but he still supports making needed investments in both physical and human infrastructure, while living within the state's means. And for the first time since the 1990s, the state posted a budget surplus. That's what happens when Democrats run government.

Republicans look at what once was a bulwark and are scared out of their minds that the rest of the country is going that way.California had always been touted as the Shangri-La to which white Midwesterners could retire. In my own city of Los Angeles, we had race-baiting mayor Sam Yorty serving as recently as the late 1960's / early 1970's. Now we've had exactly one Republican mayor in the past 40 years, and he won by being the most moderate of Republicans, and making deals with the Democratic majority on the City Council. Within a generation, with massive foreign immigration, Los Angeles went from being "Indiana on the Pacific" to a true world city, as cosmopolitan and diverse as New York or London.

The Republican brand in California is at an all time low. And, keep in mind, this was down without gerrymandering. California has an independent commission, the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, drawing district lines both on the federal and state levels. So, no gerrymandering means that it will be a wash electorally, right? No. This commission drew the lines which gave Democrats a two-thirds majority in the Legislature, and increased the Democratic representation in the Congressional delegation. Unless Democrats muck it up, Republicans have no future in California. And as goes California, so goes the nation. Our state is the precursor of what the rest of the country will look like. Even Old Confederacy states like Georgia will have a large segment of minority voters, who will likely give their votes to Democrats, and joining with liberal whites will tip the balance of power across the south.


Look at what's happening in TX. Here it was Prop 187; there it will be the attack on women's health and voter ID laws. The mobilization over the abortion bill being filibustered by Democrats, led by Wendy Davis, is something TX hasn't seen in decades. The more white Republicans grasp to preserve their remaining power, the more they will lose. Demography already puts the White House out of their grasp, for the most part. And as in 2012, attempts to suppress the vote for 2014 will propel the Democratic electorate to stand in line for hours and obtain any ID required, especially with OFA as a ready-made organization.

Which brings me to my last point. To all the naysayers who are now wailing that "we will never win another election", I have a few questions: Where have you been for the past 12 years? More specifically, where were you in 2000, when Nader's 3% of the vote was enough to throw Florida into chaos and hand the Presidency to George W. Bush? There is a direct line from November of 2000 to Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. To pretend otherwise is to ignore history. And where were you in 2010, when the 2008 voters stayed home and handed both the House and state governments across the nation to a radical Republican fringe? There is also a direct line from November 2010 to the SCOTUS ruling. To pretend otherwise is to lie to yourself. And where will you be in 2014? Will you donate to Democratic organizations? Will you drive voters to the polls? Will you make calls? Or will you sit at your computers gnashing your teeth and despairing because the mean nasty Republicans are mean and nasty?

A democracy is only as good as we make it. Without participation, the loudest voices will win. We have to be the loudest voices, voices that make the earth shake. Anything less, and we deserve what we get.

The GOP knows it's heading for history's dustbin. It's time for us to sweep them into it.

U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers won't run for Senate seat

By Todd Spangler/Detroit Free Press

The soon-to-be-vacant U.S. Senate seat in Michigan — something of a rarity — isn’t exactly drawing an interested crowd.

On Friday, U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, a Howell Republican, took himself out of the 2014 race to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, depriving Republicans of the candidate many thought had the best chance of wresting the seat from Democratic control.

His departure leaves one prominent Republican candidate who has already announced her intentions, former Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, and one prominent Democrat who has already cleared his party’s field, U.S. Rep. Gary Peters of Bloomfield Township.

Speculation has even been circulating that U.S. Rep. Justin Amash — a libertarian firebrand from Cascade Township in west Michigan — may be backing away from a race after once being considered to be a likely participant.

Hanging over the race, however, are a few political facts: Peters enjoys vast support among Michigan’s still-powerful unions and has a base in key Detroit suburbs. And while Republicans have managed to win statewide office on several occasions, none has been able to win a U.S. Senate race since Spencer Abraham’s single-term victory in 1994.

Despite Michigan’s Republican governor, Legislature, attorney general and secretary of state, most political prognosticators consider the Senate seat a safe bet for Democrats to hold on to.

It was unsurprising then that Rogers, in a message Friday to supporters, said he plans to continue his service in the House, where he is currently serving his seventh two-year term.

“For me, the significance and depth of the impact I can make on my constituents’ behalf far outweighs the perceived importance of any title I might hold,” Rogers said, announcing his decision in an e-mail to supporters.

“I believe that from my current position, I am best able to have a real, positive impact on protecting our nation and her citizens,” he said, adding that once the Republican primary has concluded, he’ll work to help elect the GOP nominee, whoever it is.

Former Michigan Gov. Jim Blanchard, a Democrat and a key Peters’ supporter, said he wasn’t surprised by Rogers’ decision but believed him to be “the only really strong candidate they could have fielded against Gary.”

Before announcing his decision, Rogers spoke to Gov. Rick Snyder and state Republican Party Chairman Bobby Schostak, who said he has “no doubt that Republicans will field a strong candidate to win this seat in 2014.”

“His responsibilities as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee are critical to our national security — a role that, while at a tense time in our nation’s history, we can trust he will perform to the best of his ability,” Schostak said of Rogers.

Earlier this year, after Peters announced his was seriously considering a run, Rogers said much the same thing. But while Peters was considered almost certain to run, speculation quickly began about the likelihood of Rogers jumping into an uncertain race when he already holds a prominent leadership position in Washington.

Most observers thought Rogers, 50, would be a formidable candidate. A former FBI agent, he has made a name for himself, showing an ability to work across the political aisle with Democratic allies while remaining a staunch conservative.

In recent weeks, he has been a regular presence on political talk shows, defending secret surveillance programs as legal and necessary in the fight against worldwide terrorism.

With Rogers out and Amash’s participation uncertain, it now falls to Land — one of the state’s two members of the Republican National Committee — to use the relatively clear field to raise money and support in hopes of forestalling the prospect of potential challengers gaining ground and giving herself a head start for a general election campaign.

Bill Ballenger, the publisher of Lansing-based Inside Michigan Politics, said contrary to other political opinions, he believes Land — if she wins the Republican nomination — could find a way to beat Peters, if he, as expected, takes the Democratic nod.

Land, after all, will be the only person in the race who has won statewide election before.

Speaking to Ballenger for this week’s issue on Inside Michigan Politics, Land said Peters “has a voting record, starting with two terms in the state Senate” that she’d be eager to discuss with voters.

Democrat Mark Schauer to challenge Gov. Rick Snyder in 2014

By Paul Egan/Detroit Free Press

LANSING — Former Democratic congressman Mark Schauer announced Tuesday that he is running for governor of Michigan in 2014.

“I’m in!” Schauer said on Twitter. “Today I’m announcing my campaign for governor. I’m ready to run, I’m ready to work & I’m ready to win.”

Schauer, from Battle Creek, made the announcement online on the eve of the Detroit Regional Chamber’s Mackinac Policy Conference on Mackinac Island, where he is to appear today. He is the only announced candidate seeking to challenge Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, who took office in 2011 and is expected to seek a second term. Snyder also is from Battle Creek.

Several prominent Democrats have announced they will not run and are backing Schauer, meaning he stands currently as the likely Democratic nominee.
Schauer represented the 7th Congressional District in 2009-11.

“Rick Snyder has taken Michigan in the wrong direction — cutting schools & raising taxes on seniors,” Schauer said on Twitter.

“We need an economy that works for everyone — not just the wealthy and not just the special interests.”

Snyder is “focused on sound policy” and “will continue to make the long overdue, tough decisions that will help keep our state moving forward and building a strong future for all,” spokeswoman Sara Wurfel said.

“Every stop we do, we come across Michiganders of all backgrounds, communities, small businesses who say they may not have agreed with everything he’s done, but they’re starting to see it make a difference and to keep going,” she said.

Schauer, a former state lawmaker and member of the Battle Creek City Commission, used to run the Community Action Agency in Battle Creek.

Right to Work Could Cost Him His Job as Democrats Are Tied With Rick Snyder

By: Jason Easley/politicususa

A poll by EPIC/MRA has found that Rick Snyder will be facing a battle for reelection. Snyder has seen his approval rating plummet, and two unknown Democrats are tied with him in the poll.

The latest EPIC/MRA poll revealed that Gov. Snyder’s declining political fortunes can be partially tied to his ramming through of right to work legislation. The governor’s personal favorability rating before right to work was 55%. Since December, it has fallen to 42%. Snyder now has a net (-20) job approval rating in the state. Gov. Snyder has a 38% positive job approval rating, and 58% negative job approval rating.

The signs of an anybody but Snyder feeling among the voters can be seen in the fact that two relatively unknown Democrats are tied with Snyder in the poll.

Despite the fact that Democrats Mark Schauer and former congressman Bart Stupak are pretty much unknown by the electorate, they are both even with Gov. Snyder in the poll. Seventy five percent of those polled did not know who Schauer was, but he leads Snyder 39%-38%. Fifty six percent did not know who Stupak was, but he trailed the governor by a single point, 39%-38%.

A large sign of Snyder’s weakness is that his level of support versus the two Democrats matches his job approval rating. This suggests that Snyder has very little support outside of the Republican Party.

The straw that seems to have broken the camel’s back was governor’s ramming through of right work legislation. The emergency manager law, the tax increases on the middle class and poor, the gutting of the education system, Snyder might have survived all of that, but his underhanded handling of right to work is something that voters may never forget.

Republicans think that the 2010 wave of tea party governors are their future stars, but 3 of the 5 most well known governors from that election could lose in 2014. Rick Scott looks like a dead man walking in Florida. Tom Corbett has lost the support of his own party, and everyone else in Pennsylvania. Rick Snyder is in for the political fight of his life if he wants to win a second term. (The only two high profile survivors from the Republican class of 2010 may be Walker in Wisconsin, and Kasich in Ohio.)

All three of the endangered Republican governors come from blue states where Democrats didn’t show up to vote in 2010. The Democratic Party and Organizing For America are each planning massive get out the vote efforts for 2014. If Democrats show up to vote next November, it won’t be a surprise if these three states who voted for Barack Obama twice elect Democratic governors.

Rick Snyder tried to make a blue state red through an imperial governorship, but in 2014, Big Blue’s (and Sparty’s) Democrats fight back.

Poll: Gov. Snyder in dead heat with 2 Democrats

By Kathleen Gray/Detroit Free Press:

Even though a big majority of recently polled Michigan voters don’t know who Democrats Mark Schauer and Bart Stupak are, the two politicians are in a dead heat with Gov. Rick Snyder in head-to-head matchups for the 2014 gubernatorial election.

Schauer of Battle Creek and Stupak of Menominee are both former state lawmakers and congressmen, and have been mentioned as potential candidates for governor, although neither has made an official announcement about running.

The poll of 600 people done April 13-16 by EPIC/MRA of Lansing showed that 56% of the people surveyed didn’t know who Stupak was and 75% didn’t know who Schauer was. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

And yet, Schauer holds a slim 39-38% lead over Snyder, while Stupak is a point behind Snyder at 38-39%.

“If they’re running even with Snyder and no one knows who they are, that’s an indication that Snyder is losing support,” said Bernie Porn, EPIC/MRA’s pollster.

The governor’s favorable rating hit a high of 55% in early December. But that was before controversial right-to-work legislation was passed in the raucous final days of the legislative session. Since then, Snyder’s ratings have been slipping. In the April survey, 42% of the people had a favorable view of him, while 46% had an unfavorable view. His job rating was 38% positive to 58% negative.

The poll was taken after Snyder proposed higher driver registration fees and gas taxes — as well as being done right around tax filing time when many Michiganders found their state refunds much lower because of new state policy pushed by Snyder.

“Those are not going over very well,” Porn said. “And now, people are doing taxes and realizing ‘I’m paying higher taxes.’ ”

But a majority of the people surveyed — 56% — said they think the economy has already bottomed out and is getting better, while 23% said the economy isn’t getting any better, with 18% saying it’s still getting worse.

President Barack Obama’s favorability ratings in the April survey are 52% favorable to 44% unfavorable.

If Election Were Held Today, Democrats Would Win House In A Landslide — And Only Win A 5 Seat Majority

By Ian Millhiser/Think Progress

According to a Quinnipiac poll released today, if the election were held today 43 percent of the electorate would support a Democratic U.S. House candidate, as opposed to just 35 percent who would back a Republican. That 8 point lead for Democrats is significantly more than the GOP’s margin of victory during the 2010 Republican wave election (6.6 percent) and even more that the Democratic margin of victory during the 2006 wave (7.9 percent) — when Democrats were bolstered by both an unpopular Republican president and a failing war in Iraq. And yet, if Democrats succeed in maintaining this substantial lead through next year’s congressional election, they will likely emerge with a tiny majority of just 5 seats.

Last January, the Republican Party published a triumphant report bragging that “Republicans enjoy a 33-seat margin in the U.S. House seated yesterday in the 113th Congress, having endured Democratic successes atop the ticket and over one million more votes cast for Democratic House candidates than Republicans.” The report touts the role GOP gerrymandering played in enabling Republicans to keep the House despite losing the popular vote, citing states like Michigan, where “Michiganders cast over 240,000 more votes for Democratic congressional candidates than Republicans, but still elected a 9-5 Republican delegation to Congress.”

Indeed, Republican gerrymandering was so successful during the last redistricting cycle that Democrats would likely need to win the national popular vote by more than 7 points in order to win the barest of majorities in the House. In 2012, gerrymandering enabled 215 House Republicans to win their elections by at least 8 points or more — only 218 seats are needed to control a majority of the House. Thus, assuming Democratic gains are evenly distributed nationwide, even if Democrats won the 8 point landslide predicted by the Quinnipiac poll they would control the House by only a narrow 220-215 margin. If this poll is off by just one point, and Democrats win by only 7 points, Republicans will retain control of the House by a single seat.

This is not democracy. It does not even approximate democracy. It is a series of elections that create the illusion of democracy while they are actually rigged to make it nearly impossible for Republicans to lose. As one Princeton study determined, it’s as if 1.7 million fewer Democrats had simply not showed up to vote in seven key states.

It’s also largely the fault of the Supreme Court. Although partisan gerrymandering violates the First Amendment’s prohibition on viewpoint discrimination, a 5-4 Supreme Court decided inVieth v. Jubelirer to simply ignore such constitutional violations.

Obama presses donors to help return Pelosi to Speakership

By Amie Parnes and Justin Sink/The Hill

President Obama returned to the fundraising trail Wednesday night with an eye on winning a House majority next year, telling donors in California it would be a “whole lot easier to govern” if Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress. 

At fundraisers for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) in San Francisco, Obama stressed the importance of returning the speakership to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), calling her a "fearless leader" who is “tough as nails.”

Obama said he has been sincere in his recent outreach to “well-meaning” Republicans and saw the potential for cooperation on a slew of issues ranging from the debt to immigration reform to gun control. 

“My intention here is to try to get as much done with the Republican Party over the next two years as I can, because we can’t have perpetual campaigns,” Obama said to about 100 supporters in the home of Kat Taylor and Tom Steyer. 

But the president said his second-term ambitions can’t be fully realized unless Pelosi wins back the Speaker’s gavel in the 2014 mid-term elections and is again “a fully empowered partner" in Washington. 

“I would love nothing better than an effective, loyal opposition that is willing to meet us halfway to move the country forward," he said of Republicans at the home of Ann and Gordon Getty, where the second fundraiser was held.  

"But I would be dishonest if I didn’t say that it would be a whole lot easier to govern if I had Nancy Pelosi as Speaker."

Earlier, Obama said: "I expect that she is going to be once again the Speaker of the House."

That's a line Obama used frequently during campaign fundraisers, but one with more resonancy now as Democrats seek the 17 seats they'd need to retake a majority.

Winning that many seats would be a tough climb, particularly in a mid-term election year. Mid-terms generally see a second term president's party lose seats, though President Clinton bucked that trend in 1998.

If Republicans do control the House after 2014, Obama may fear his days as a lame-duck president will start early. Republicans also hope to take over the Senate, though they would have to win six seats to do so. 

Obama has made no secret of his desire to win back the House next year, which would go a long way toward helping him buttress his legacy. Much of Obama’s agenda is stuck with Republicans in control of the lower chamber.

“We just want to get stuff done,” he said at the Getty home.

The White House is pushing gun control legislation and immigration overhaul, and Obama is also holding conversations with Republicans about a deficit-reduction package. The debt ceiling will need to be hiked later this summer, an event that could serve as a vehicle for wider legislation on taxes and entitlements. 

Obama and congressional Republicans remain far apart on guns, entitlements, taxes and other issues, though immigration has emerged as an area where both sides have incentives to get something done.

Obama said he was hopeful about the chances of passing immigration reform in the coming months — even as he needled Republicans for not embracing the Hispanic community during the 2012 election.

“It’s interesting how clarifying to the mind Democrats getting 70 percent of the Latino vote was in suggesting that maybe we needed to finally fix a broken immigration system,” he said in his first fundraiser. 

Wednesday's events marked Obama’s first return to the circuit since Oct. 11, and they followed a successful campaign that raised $1.1 billion for his reelection.

Both of Wednesday’s fundraisers were in San Francisco’s ritzy Pacific Heights neighborhood. Tickets cost between $5,000 and $32,400.

On Thursday, Obama will hold two more events to benefit the Democratic National Committee. Thirty people will pay $32,400 a piece to have brunch with the president, and tickets for a lunch late in the afternoon range between $1,000 and $20,000.

It’s unclear how much Obama will raise with the four events, though one Democratic official said Wednesday’s dinner — an annual gathering for Pelosi — raised $1.7 million alone in 2012. 

Both Pelosi and Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, attended Wednesday's events. 

Israel described House Republicans to donors as full of "obstruction, chaos, inflexibility and intolerance,” according to a pool report. He said the DCCC  is looking to recruit “solutionists” for 2014, an election he predicted would be “a referendum on the House Republicans' extremism, obstruction and chaos."

Pelosi took her own shots at the GOP, telling donors at the Getty residence Obama had reached out to Republicans with “endless courtesy” that had not been reciprocated.

“He just has a group of people there who do not share that commitment to civility,” Pelosi said. “If we can just change the minds of the Republicans as the Hispanics [sic] seemed to do on the immigration bill, that would be a good thing, too.”

The president promised to do eight fundraisers for House Democrats when he attended their retreat in February, and he spoke about fundraising for them on election night with Israel, the head of the House Democrats campaign arm, and Pelosi.

Obama told the pair, “I’m in in 2014.”

“We couldn’t ask for anything more,” Israel said at the time, before quickly adding: “But we will.”

During Obama's first fundraiser on Wednesday, he mentioned other priorities, including college affordability and climate change. 

“The thing that I’m going to have to try to work to persuade the American people a little more convincingly on is this notion that there’s a contradiction between our economy and our environment is just a false choice,” Obama said. 

Steyer, a hedge fund billionaire, is pledging to spend as much of his fortune as necessary to make climate change “the defining issue of our generation.”

Obama was confronted with concerns about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline later at the Getty home, where about 100 protesters carried signs objecting to the proposed Canada-to-Texas oil sands project. 

Inside, Obama avoided direct mention of the pipeline — now under review at the State Department — but touted his efforts to reduce carbon emissions and to promote clean energy.

The fundraisers have drawn fire from Republicans, who have suggested Obama is more focused on next year’s election than governing.

On Wednesday, GOP Chairman Reince Priebus blasted the fundraisers as “hypocrisy at its finest,” noting that the president had campaigned on raising taxes on the wealthy donors likely to attend the events.

“On the campaign trail Obama’s favorite applause line was attacking the very people he’s now begging for campaign cash,” Priebus said. “Hypocrisy at its finest. Barack Obama has his priorities completely backward — prioritizing billionaires over the taxpayers who demand and deserve a budget and canceling White House tours while he spends $180,000 an hour flying Air Force One to fundraise on Billionaires Row.”

Michigan Democratic Party Statement on Sen. Carl Levin Declining to Seek Re-election

From Michigan Democratic Party:

LANSING — The Michigan Democratic Party released the following statement on U.S. Sen. Carl Levin’s announcement that he will not seek re-election in 2014:

“Carl Levin is an icon of integrity and a model for distinguished and courageous public service. For 34 years, Senator Levin has fought for Michigan’s working families, and as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee he has stood up for our brave men and women in uniform,” said Michigan Democratic Party Chair Lon Johnson. “For decades he has sought truth and demanded accountability from special interests. Today Senator Levin demonstrated his selfless commitment to those principles, announcing that he will devote himself entirely to serving the people of Michigan until his term ends in January 2015.

“There will be another day to discuss the 2014 election, but today I join with all Michiganders in expressing my gratitude to my friend and role model, Senator Carl Levin.”

Obama predicts Pelosi will be speaker again soon

by Ed O'Keefe/Washington Post 

President Obama predicted Thursday that if Democrats pursue an ambitious agenda, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will soon have the speaker’s gavel back.

“It won’t be smooth, it won’t be simple, there will be frustrations, there will be times when you guys will be mad at me, and I’ll occasionally read about it.” he said. But if they keep focused, he said, ”I would expect that Nancy Pelosi is going to be speaker again pretty soon.”

But the president also appeared to be steeling House Democrats — who are more liberal than their Senate counterparts — for the need to remain open to concessions to moderate Democrats and Republicans not as eager to engage on the two domestic issues likely to  dominate his State of the Union address next week — immigration and gun-control.

Obama spoke at a midday session at the annual House Democratic policy retreat, held  at the tony Lansdowne Resort outside Leesburg. He addressed the group from his presidential podium in a large ballroom as lawmakers sat at round tables in casual dress.

Joking that he “just made a pretty long speech a couple of weeks ago and I’m about to make another one next week and I don’t want you guys tired of me,” Obama appeared to be testing out broad themes that may find their way into next week’s State of the Union address.

On immigration, Obama said the issue is “a top priority and an early priority,” but that he understands “that in some places this may end up being a tough issue.”

“But what I also know is that part of our strength is our youth and our dynamism and our history of attracting talent from all over the world.”

He earned his biggest applause, however, when he turned to gun-control, an issue of special concern to House Democrats, who represent mostly urban and suburban areas affected by mass shootings and urban gang violence.

“Again there are regional differences here, and we should respect those,” he said. “Guns mean something different for somebody who grew up on a farm in a rural community and someone who grew up in the inner city. There are different realities that we have to respect, but what we know that the majority of gun owners recognize that we cannot have a situation in which 20 more of our children or 100 more of our children or 1,000 more of our children are shot and killed in a senseless fashion. And that there are some commonsense steps we can take in building consensus. We cannot shy away from taking those steps.”

Obama began his remarks by saying he was “humbled” by the election results and the opportunity to recalibrate his focus over the next four years.

“I’m prepared, eager and anxious to do a big deal, a big package that ends this governance by crisis, where every three weeks or every two months or every six months we are threatening this hard-won recovery,” Obama said. “I want to do something big to provide certainty and steadiness for the economy and for American families.”

Obama also took the opportunity to once again criticize Republicans for focusing too much on finding ways to cut government spending without supporting more revenue through eliminating tax loopholes that benefit wealthier Americans or large corporations.

“I have to tell you, if that’s an argument they want to have before the court of public opinion, that’s an argument I’m more than willing to engage in,” Obama said.

The president spoke the day after Vice President Biden addressed the group and focused most of his remarks on gun-control proposals. Former president Bill Clinton is scheduled to meet with the group behind closed doors on Friday morning.